Lately I've been quite sentimental when I think about my early blogging days. Six years ago there was a small online community of women who enjoyed arts + crafts + design and many of us had little ones. We would post photographs of our kids and our latest creations and we formed these personal connections with one another even though many of us had never met in person. It was back then that I realized that for many of us we needed "something" outside of our identity as wife, mother and worker. For me my blog provided me with a creative outlet and was a little space on the web that was "all mine". Back then "swaps" were fairly common, I hosted a few of my own. People would sign up to participate in a "swap" [each with a different theme], make their goodies and send them off to someone that they most likely never met in person. Over the years the community grew and swaps became less prevalent. A few months ago I tweeted about how J was making freezer paper stencil t-shirts for his 2nd grade market and Paula and I exchanged a few tweets. I suggested we do a simple swap for t-shirts.

The boys helped me make a few t-shirts and we filled a box with the t-shirts and a few Valentine's Day related goodies.

We also sent a box of strawberry pocky with a vintage [is 3+ years considered vintage?] SHIM + SONS gift tag.

My favorite part of course is packaging it all up.

Jen's custom Valentine's Day cards came in handy. I printed them out in a smaller size to use as a gift tag. [And can I tell you how proud I am of J because he's been working on his handwriting and he's made huge improvements! His writing is on the gift tag.]

I haven't had a chance to take photographs of the adorable t-shirts Paula + KJ + Ellie sent the boys. The boys love them! More than anything I love how a simple swap connects us to a beautiful family in Alabama that we've never met [but plan to meet one day].

P.S. I have a NEW project I will be sharing with you all tomorrow! I am very excited!! [And for those of you who are interested in learning how to make your own freezer paper stencil t-shirts, I'll have a simple tutorial for you.]

Happy {belated} Valentine's Day! I had a fun-filled day with two class parties and a yummy southern dinner at Screen Door with my boys. Hope you all had a good one!

The boys and I were thinking about making robot valentines again this year since they are both at new schools but we opted for the half-way homemade route this year. Jen of Sophie + Lili gifted the boys with sweet custom valentines [have you seen how she is expanding her printablestationery line?] and they were too cute not to use. I printed the valentine cards on to white cardstock and cut them with a paper cutter. J rounded the corners using my corner rounder and the boys filled in their classmates' names and their names on the provided lines. Quick and easy.

But of course the handmade valentine lover in me wanted to add a little something extra. And since I'm the party coordinator for both boys' classrooms I thought something fun for the kids to play during the Valentine's Day party would be great. So I designed simple tic tac toe cards and the boys sorted out m&m's by color and added two sets of colored candies inside plastic bags [yes, there was some sampling involved]. I printed out labels for the "x's + o's" and the boys helped me stick them on the bags.

The tic tac toe cards, x's + o's and valentines were all placed inside clear resealable bags. I think these would make fun birthday party favors as well.

The valentines were a big hit with the boys' classmates. Valentine's Day is one of those holidays that is so much more fun for me now that I have children. It was SO cute seeing how much fun the boys had handing out valentines to their friends and teachers.

UPDATE // I redesigned the Tic Tac Toe Valentine and it is available as a free printable here.

Hello, December! I can't believe you are already here! As you can tell I've been on a holiday decorating kick the past few months. And although we still have quite a bit of Christmas decorations to make, the advent calendar was on the top of my list. I feel like we haven't had a proper Christmas for a few years. In 2008 we were living in Korea and celebrated Christmas in Thailand of all places and last year we were in temporary housing so we didn't have a tree or many decorations. And although we are happy just being together as a family during the holidays this year I want to make up for the past few years of nonexistent or sub par holiday decorations.

Although I've made a few different advent calendars over the years I decided to make a new one this year. I originally wanted to sew together a cute linen advent calendar like this, but decided to go the easy route and use little kraft boxes with removable lids. I picked up the boxes at our local paper supply store and thought I had the clever idea of using my old Martha Stewart rub on transfer numbers. I finished boxes 1-13 [photograph below--top left] and realized I did not have enough numbers to finish the project. After four different trips to various craft + paper stores [I couldn't find the same transfers and didn't like my other options] I thought I settled on using vinyl adhesive numbers from the office supply store. But upon numbering boxes 1-4 [photograph below--top right] I decided I wasn't in love with the look.

I finally settled on printing out numbers on to white sticker paper and adhering it to the box tops. I think the fact that it was way past my bedtime really helped me commit to this design. I secured the boxes to a white linen covered pin board [leftover from our Halloween decorations] using two thumbtacks. Today the boys received little Japanese animal erasers.

I picked up some simple office supplies [cute paper clips, washi tape, scotch tape--which is a hot commodity in casa shim, white pens, black post-its] to place inside the boxes. On some days they will receive a small + simple gift.

And on other days there will be a slip of paper with a family activity written on it. I love this intentional and dedicated family time during the busy holiday season.

And I think it is the boys' favorite thing about the advent calendar.

Of course a little peppermint taffy also makes them happy!

UPDATE // Thank you to everyone who has blogged/tweeted/pinned this post. You can also find my new work, including holiday decorating ideas, over at my new blog SALLYJSHIM.

The boys and I had so much fun making Halloween decorations last month that we were motivated to make a few Thanksgiving decorations. I originally planned to create Thanksgiving/Christmas decorations but once I started to sketch out a few ideas I decided that our Christmas decor didn't seem to suit the simple and humble nature of Thanksgiving.

We printed out a "GIVE THANKS" banner [printed grey letters on to white card stock and cut the letters out] and strung it on some hemp twine. The paper circle garland is leftover from a project I did last year [paper punched circles of kraft paper + card stock and stitched together on a sewing machine]. I picked up the cardboard moose head from West Elm. Appah is not a fan of the moose head but the boys and I love Fred Jr. [his given name]. Good thing it is a complete dictatorship when it comes to decorating the house [just kidding, well, not really.]

I made a wreath to cover up the ill placed outlet + cable thing [ha! I don't know what you call it] above our mantle. I bought a styrofoam ring, cut strips of burlap [which I've decided is my least favorite material to cut...lots of burlap dust!!], wrapped it around the styrofoam and secured it with a few straight pins. I added a fabric flower that I picked up in Korea, tied a ribbon on the top and hung it using monofilament.

I placed a few wood stones and glass votive holders on the mantle.

But by far my favorite decoration was the "Thanksgiving tree" I made with the boys. I cut out leaves from kraft paper + card stock and had the boys write on the leaves things they were thankful for. It was so interesting to see what they wrote down.

I am so excited to share with you all the first issue of Gifted holiday magazine + gift guide. Ez, of Creature Comforts Blog, put together the most beautiful online magazine filled with holiday projects, gift ideas and interviews. I had so much fun working on a holiday gift wrapping feature for the magazine [pages 114-124] and feel so honored that one of my photographs was used for the cover! [Thank you, Ez, for allowing me to be a part of Gifted magazine!]

I'm not one of those people who love Halloween. It definitely is a holiday that is more fun now that we have children but I feel like this is the first year that I've actually given it much thought outside of "what are the boys going to dress up as for Halloween?" But somehow this year when October rolled around I kept thinking about making Halloween decorations. Not the gory and spooky kind but something cute and simple. And of course my boys were totally on board with the idea since they love any type of decoration.

The "Happy Halloween" banner is made out of black card stock and black and white bakers twine.

One of my favorite decorations is this Halloween branch. We painted a branch with white acrylic paint and added paper pumpkins, orange and black paper flowers, bats, leaves and some spider webs.

This spider web is a placemat I found at Ikea and thought would make a great spider web. We painted it white and backed it with white card stock. I would have omitted the white card stock but I was trying to hide the outlet we have above our mantle. The boys punched out a bunch of black paper spiders using a Martha Stewart paper punch and we tucked some of the legs into the web to secure them in place. I then hung the web from the ceiling using monofilament and a thumbtack.

I've been making paper globes for years and I never get tired of them. I saw the pumpkin paper globe idea years ago in Martha Stewart Kids and I finally got around to making them. I added a little green cardstock stem and was so happy to find perfectly matching green brads at our local paper store.

When I saw the cute orange + white zigzag glitter scrapbook paper I knew I wanted to use it for paper bunting. Bunting is so easy and fun to make.

Although I generally steer clear of foam stickers the boys picked out some cute Halloween glitter foam stickers at our local paper shop. I cut up some black and white card stock and the boys put the stickers on the front and back of the cards. I then sewed the cards together and hung them from the ceiling. The boys also had fun punching out dozens of little black paper bats using another Martha Stewart punch. We placed a few on a white linen covered pin board and the rest on a mini paper lantern garland.

Since I wanted to be able to reuse the lanterns we used little foam squares to adhere the bats since they can easily be removed.

I have a thing for mobiles and I knew I wanted to make a few Halloween mobiles. J found a pack of Halloween die cuts on sale at Michaels so we used the skulls + bones and some monofilament and hung them from a painted embroidery hoop. We also used the web + spider die cuts in another mobile. The boys punched out black + white paper circles and I sewed them together.

Lastly we hung a few die-cut spider webs and paper spiders in the window on our front door.

And now that we have a nice set of Halloween decorations I think we'll host a little Halloween party next year!

The boys are at a new school this year so we are all in the process of making new friends. I've been meeting a lot of parents at school while volunteering or attending various school meetings. After jotting down my contact information several times I made a mental note to design some calling cards.

Although I have business cards for some reason I feel a bit silly passing them out to mums at school. I'm so glad I finally made time to design + print my very own calling cards. I whipped these out in less than an hour and even managed to make a case for the calling cards out of my favorite industrial wool.

A new school year means new lunch bags for the boys. You might remember last year's lunch bags which held up nicely all year long. We're still using the same bento jars since they work well for carrying hot soup + rice.

I decided to use my favorite navy + white twill since it has the perfect selvedge for a front pocket. The tags are made from kraft cardstock + a dymo label. I wish I could say the lunch bags came together really quickly but I was sewing while watching korean dramas on my computer and after three attempts [what can I say I'm a slow learner] I finally got it right. The good news is I now have a stack of six drawstring bags that will come in handy for packaging birthday gifts throughout the school year.